Find Your Happy Place (and the Joy You Set Aside)
My happy place has always been the ocean.
The moment I can see the water, something in me settles. The salt air. The sound of the waves. Dolphins rolling just past the break. Whatever I was carrying that day feels a little lighter.
Everyone needs a place like that. Somewhere that brings you back to yourself. And I didn’t realize it at the time, but mine was about to shape everything I built.
A Journal of Big Ideas
More than a decade ago, I was in one of the most stressful seasons of my life. We were building a business, and every day was full of decisions, deadlines, and problems to solve.
I was afraid that if I wasn’t careful, the dreams I had for my own life would get buried under all of it.
So I started a journal of big ideas. Things I wanted to create someday. Places I wanted to go. The life I hoped to build when things finally slowed down. Whenever an idea came to me, I wrote it down and tucked it away for later.
Maybe you have a list like that too. Maybe it’s not on paper, just tucked away in your heart. The things you’ve set aside for when the kids are older. When work calms down. When life finally slows.
Finding It Again
Years later, life finally did slow down. And I knew I wanted my next chapter to be built around something I loved. Something that brought me joy.
So I asked myself, What have I always wanted to do? And I went back to those journals.
Pages and pages of ideas. And one stood out, rooted, of course, in my love for the ocean: Salt Water Paper. A brand that brought together everything I loved. The coast. Travel. Positivity. Designing beautiful journals that help people live better. It was all right there, an outline and an idea board I’d sketched years before I had the time to build it.
One quiet Saturday morning, I sat down to start putting together my first book. I moved things around. Tested fonts. Adjusted the spacing until it felt right.
When I finally looked up, it was ten o’clock at night. I’d been at it for almost twelve hours, and I still had the same energy I’d started with.
That’s when I knew I’d found it. My happy place had been waiting in a journal all along. The ocean I’ve always loved, and the work that makes me lose track of time, brought together in one place.
Your Joy Is Still There
Joy rarely disappears all at once. It fades slowly, while we’re busy taking care of everyone and everything else. Then one day, life is full, but it feels a little flat.
If that’s where you are, I want you to know your joy isn’t gone. It’s just been waiting. As I wrote in my book, Living Well, Pure and Simple:
“Joy was never lost. It was just waiting for you to come back to it.”
Everyone has something that makes them lose track of time. A place that settles them. An idea they keep coming back to. What’s yours?
Why Writing It Down Matters
I don’t think Salt Water Paper would exist if I hadn’t written those ideas down. Life was too loud back then. They would have slipped away.
That’s what a journal does. It holds onto what matters when you don’t have room for it yet. It reminds you who you are when the noise makes you forget. And years later, it shows you how much you’ve grown.
You don’t need a perfect routine. You don’t need to write every day. Just write when something is on your heart: an idea, a dream, a place you love, a feeling you want to remember. Date it, close the cover, and come back someday.
You might be surprised by what’s waiting for you.
A Few Prompts to Get You Started
If you’re not sure where to begin, pick one of these.
To find your happy place:
- Where do you feel most at peace? Describe it: what you see, hear, and smell there.
- What time of day feels most like you?
- Who are you with when you’re happiest?
To find your joy:
- What have you always wanted to do “someday”?
- What makes you lose track of time?
- If no one could see your life, what would you choose to do with it?
More prompts are listed in our journal to help you get started.
One Simple Step
Think back to what you loved doing growing up. What made you lose track of time? Find a way to do it for thirty minutes this week.
Then write down one idea you’ve been saving for “when life slows down.” Date it, and keep it somewhere safe. Someday, it might be the start of something beautiful.
If you’re looking for a place to start, our journals were made for exactly this.
